Parents are eager to teach their young children how to use the toilet to abandon diapers with all of their inconveniences. Training pants are useful in toilet training children and cloth training pants are widely available. Typically, these cloth undergarments that are currently available are similar to washable, cloth underwear in how they are put on and worn, yet also provide an absorbent function like diapers to draw and retain urine, while still providing a feeling of wetness to the child. Unlike diapers, the child can independently remove the training pants and replace the undergarment when finished with toileting. Training pants provide a child with an undergarment that eases the transition from diapers to cloth underwear as they become more confident in their ability to use the toilet independently. However, unlike diapers, cloth training pants do not protect the child's outer clothing.
Parents may choose to ease the transition to cloth underwear by using disposable training pants. While these protect the child's outer clothing from soiling, they do not provide the feeling of wetness that cloth training pants provide.
In order to learn to use the toilet independently, a child must first recognize the connection between the urge to urinate and urination occurring so that this bodily function may be controlled. Similarly, the child must associate the urge to defecate and defecation. This is the biggest hurdle in the training process as these acts may often occur during an activity that distracts the child sufficiently so that the child does not notice that he or she has had an “accident.” Also, a child's ability to recognize when he or she has urinated may be hampered by disposable absorbent undergarments that quickly draw and retain urine away from the wearer's skin after the child has wet without providing a signal to the child.
Many believe that a child must feel wetness on the skin to signal that he or she has had an accident and to associate the feeling of the urge to urinate with urinating. The feeling of wetness promotes timely use of the toilet to avoid the uncomfortable damp, soggy sensation that follows.
Parents can choose between the traditional fabric training pants and disposable super-absorbent “pull-ups”. The traditional fabric training pants provide that feeling of wetness, but provide no protection to the outer garments against wetness and soiling. When beginning the toilet training process, children have many accidents, soiling and wetting the training pants and outer garments several times a day. If the parent chooses to use the traditional fabric style that provides the wetness feeling, the result is a significant increase in laundry, because the soiled and wet outer garments as well as the training pants must be changed frequently and laundered.
Disposable training pants quickly pull the wetness away from the skin without providing the child with a sensation of wetness. While these prevent soiling and wetting outer garments, they may inhibit the training process. Others have attempted to provide toilet training aids that alert a child that urination has occurred, without the feeling of wetness, particularly when disposable super-absorbent pants are used. For example, it has been proposed to have pads inserted or incorporated into the disposable toilet training underwear that include a temperature change indicator, a dimensional change indicator or an effervescence gas emission when contacted with urine to alert the child that he or she has urinated. Also absorbent articles have been proposed that have an initial wet feel to alert the child that urination has occurred. This initial wetness lasts only a short time after which the surface moisture value drops to a lower level resulting in a drier feeling to the child and eliminates the uncomfortable soggy, wet sensation.
While these proposed indicators in disposable pants alert the child, they do not provide the wetness sensation and the uncomfortable feeling that gives biofeedback to the child. The alternative to disposables leaves the prospect of mountains of extra laundry. There continues to be a need for simple, effective articles that alert children that urination has occurred and also protects outer garments from staining and wetness.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.